Ets Chay
by Aenigmatic
Summary: [part 2: crucifixion] The drama started when Eden became a memory. But one event in particular, shapes it all.
1. Part I

**'Ets Chay **

**Author's Note:**

_Hi...something I wrote, completely Biblically based, with some of its symbolism and types - but I know I shouldn't leave it like this - there should be a second and third part up some time._  
  
Part I  


_"So He [God] drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life."_  
Genesis 3:24

The want to cower was strong - even though the voice that called for them sounded gentle when that divine Presence passed on a lilting tune as it usually did, as the flowers, resplendent in their mad blossom, sighed in melodious wonder and as the dewy trees bowed their deference. 

Eden's sublime harmony teetered and tipped, shattering into millennia of fleeting, uncaught dreams. 

Fearful uncertainty - a vast ocean of doubt - razor-sharp regret. - a rush of emotions that bewildered them so deeply, these overwhelming emotions that never existed prior, now sprang like a devouring lion shocking her so, such that the fruit rolled out of her hand, a small part of it lingering in her mouth. 

The Voice called and they hid, suddenly nursing an instinct out of many emerging thousands swiftly born of the bitter aftertaste of knowledge's fruit, staggering past the luxuriant branches of the trees, finally settling uncomfortably within the large leaves. Anxiously, they looked down upon their covering, wretchedly and almost comically fumbling with the hurriedly plucked and woven fig leaves - an inescapable, unconscious lament for the loss of the crown of glory and honour. 

The Garden, its crystalline river, its evening breezes and morning mists had been beatifically idyllic; they had run through it filled with its innocent spectrum of colours. 

But now black brought on its fangs, a hulking snake and looming death; it advanced faster than the blinding white, which retreatednow there were perplexing shades of grey that befuddled their untrained minds.

_Where are you, Adam?_

All of creation lifted their regal heads in response, an animated adoration that leaned towards the passing breeze of the Almighty.

_What is this that you have done?_

_For such, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conceptionBoth thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the fieldIn the sweat of your face you shall eat bread._

Dully they watched the animal wail, and the horrifying splatter of blood thereafter that proclaimed the slaying of the unblemished lamb by the Almighty's very own hand, which they were also not spared. They wore the animal now, a grievous, blood-drenched sight, covered by tunics that too, carried the stained red memory of the slaying. 

Unseen by all except for the eyes of the Almighty, the seed of stain had been sown. He saw, the drop of black against the white, the drop of indigo against the clear, and its hateful, malicious growth through the dimension of time that he stretched between His hands. 

And in that everlasting memory, He saw the beautiful archangel fall, cast from the celestial heights to inhabit the serpent's offered body, and heard the second thud of humanity's fall 

They had to leave Eden, now merely utopia in name, to till the ground from where the man was taken. 

Spindle of flaming light descended, multiplied, and coalesced from the corners of the Garden as the man and woman trudged out of their only home, that brief cocoon of sheltered incorruptibility and peace that had abruptly ruptured. Unbearable, terrifying brightness sailing on cherubic wings of gold slid through Eden's eastern threshold to guard the _Ets Chay_. 

And in their hands an extended, blazing _chereb_ appeared, twisting, turning every way, so that none found the way to the tree. 

The man and woman stopped in their tracks, caught within the vortex of their last awe-struck savour of paradise, mingled with the unfamiliar stirrings of fear and regret. Until now they still saw the faint, iridescent twists of lights that shot back and forth from the beginning to the end of their vision. Painfully dazzling scoops of blinding white, dances of fire that now made them tremble with dread.

The years came - and went - they knew now what grief meant when their second son had died, and the bittersweet joy that came when they stared at their children's childrenbut the reminder of the world that they had spent so brief a time in did not fade. The tunics that the Jehovah had made for them did not last; its substance perished, a testament of the temporal animal sacrifice, the perennial blood. 

_Ets Chay_. Had they only eaten of it! Then they could have remained perpetually in the presence of the Jehovah, laughing and feasting of the God-life in the cooling film of vapours that rose unfailingly from the Garden. 

Somehow they knew no one would see it again, unlessthe cherubim's sword stopped its deadly twirl. Or was there another way - a way that they could not think of, to gain access to the tree of life that they had disregarded? 

_'Ets Chay - Hebrew for 'Tree of Life'  
Chereb - Hebrew for 'Sword'_  



	2. Part II

**Part II **

_"Awake, O Sword, against My Shepherd, Against the Man who is my Companion, says the Lord of Hosts. Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; then I will turn My hand against the little ones, And it shall come to pass in all the land, says the Lord. That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it" I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'This is My people'; and each one will say, 'The Lord is my God.'" _

_Zechariah 13:7-9 _

The plunge into the river Jordan was steep but they went nonetheless, dying under its stagnant pool, raised dripping and stirred to a pregnant and joyful richness they did not yet fully understand. 

The man presented a clownish sight, clad in rough-hewn edges of camel's hair and the leather belt around his waist, a preaching, prophesying figure that emerged from the wilds of Judea. 

Sometimes the baptist ran, sometimes he walked, and the crowd murmured among themselves that he only feasted on wild locusts and wild honey. A sacred madness lingered around him, a burning, holy lunacy that hinted at sights which only he had beheld, yet the crowd merely discerned shards of sunlight that filtered through thick canopy of leaves. He looked at their feet, still rooted in parched ground their bedrock, an incinerated conflagrate of chaff. 

Perhaps it was this dismal sight that stirred his heart. Perhaps he saw they were dead to their own needs and had forgotten their thirst. 

It moved him to shout, its sound a channel of radiant vigour that coalesced into these few words that circled him as his strides covered the area on which they stood. 

"Repent!" He moved from an end to another, never desisting, scoring many with his preparation of the way of the One to come. 

Who are you, they asked, questions incessant and curious, wanting to know if the days of the prophets had finally swept back. 

A voice, crying in the wilderness, making straight the way of the Lord. 

"I baptise you in water, but among you stands one whom you do not know! I am not fit to tie the thong of his sandals, for He is far mightier than I." The urgency had built in his voice, a palpable overflow of excitement at the imminent arrival of the One. 

"For the Spirit of heaven will descend upon him as a dove; this is the One who baptises with the Holy Spirit, and I only with water." 

********** 

It began with a sliver of light, a perfect needlepoint through the broad canopy of clouds, a seemingly insignificant ray that struck the undulating water. Under its oblique tip, the liquid glittered a brilliant silver and smiled. 

The man who stood waist-deep in the same waters, readied himself, turning to the other man who stood by him. 

"Let this be so for now, for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness." The sliver of light broadened, as though an impatient hand had reached out to wave away the clouds. 

With a fluid motion the man was then dipped backwards, disappearing under the Jordan's placid surface and emerged a moment later, drenched with the love of the universe in His eyes. The heavens split, a blinding doorway of light from which a dove fluttered gracefully out, alighting on his shoulder. 

_This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. _

Across the earth, understanding dawned. The unbodied figure rose, claws and talons suddenly furled, moving through a mirage whose shower replaced gaping darkness with the chimera of resplendent beauty. 

They both remembered, he was sure of it. 

********** 

On the third hour, they brought out the nails. The arteries split under the unrelenting, driving pressure of the metal point. 

The Christ hung on the highest point of Golgotha, suspended between heaven and earth. 

Below, vile words and wayward rumours of sorcery ran amok. Above him, the heavens darkened in shades of blackest grey and harnessed the stray corners of history, rotating the Alpha and the Omega on the axis that was him. 

He hung limply, a figure pinned to quiescent eternity by the jagged points of nails, circled and bordered in by the violent, carnal tempest that was humanity. 

He saw the fig leaves that had covered skin, and the fig tree that he had cursed. He glimpsed depravity and disease and hauled it onto his back, roping up poverty by its neck. He heard the laughter of Lazarus and remembered the touch of the haemorrhaging woman, their healing joy morphing his face into the hideous. 

He thought of the burnt lamb that the Children of Israel had feasted on, and swiped his blood across their doorposts. He remembered the atoning rites of Aaron's priesthood and exchanged it for the eternal blessings of the unchangeable Melchizedek, sealing the stone tablets under a lid of pure gold scattered with his blood under the watchful eyes of the _cherubim_. 

He called those who had eyes to see, the impaled bronze serpent on the Moses' pole, crying out when the rod of Moses struck his flesh to yield water for those who thirst. 

A cup of judgement that steadily filled itself to the brim. 

He saw the terrible, blazing sword of the _cherubim_, guardians of the holiness and righteousness of God that guarded the tree of life, its sharp point turning all ways – and walked into it. 

Resolutely, with trembling hands that grasped the cup, the bitter draught was drunk, replenishing itself until the last drop rolled down his tongue. And it was revealed to him the unnameable filth he had become, wearing naught crowned with a diadem of thorns and lacking in all things, the most cursed of mankind. 

And then he saw the void that his father once filled. 

On that eternal plateau where his foot was, a crack appeared; the crack became a chasm, and the chasm an ever-widening abyss filled with the fire of separation. He was alone – where he had once stood with a father, there now merely existed a distant God on the opposite side of the chasm whose back was turned, whose face he no longer saw. 

He wept, not seeing that the distant God wept with his back turned. 

_Eloi...Eloi...lama sabachthani! _

There was only one more thing he needed to cry as darkness leapt into glory, an apparent harbinger and clincher of victory to the dark powers. 

_It is finished... _

A thousand forked-tongues exulted. Death smiled and swaggered under that final heave; out of its gnarled feet, hissing serpents uncoiled and released their snarling heads, crushed immediately by the mighty heel of one borne of woman's seed. 

The gaping chasm was once again closed; he perceived it as the faint creak of a slowly opening door that abruptly swung fully outward on its hinges, soft as the tearing of the temple's veil was loud. 

It was the footfalls of the once distant God that passed beyond the torn veil, in whom he now sought and found the familiar face of the Father. 

_Father, into your hands I commit my spirit... _

The last breath of his body took flight, coming to rest in the hands of a weeping, exposed Father. 

********** 


End file.
